Nothing has changed

From the start, from the very begining, the very first time I heard someone say "Everything has changed.", I cringed, for two reasons.

First reason is historical. Go down the checklist throughout all of human history, and whenever a catalyst on a large enough scale has occurred and people started saying "everything has changed" it's mostly turned out poorly. Almost to a one, it has been little more than excuse to suppress dissent and push an agenda.

The second reason I cringed is a lot simple; it's just plain bullshit. Nothing has changed, and nothing ever will change. Since the dawn of human history we've ran the gamut of petty little bastard's to saints walking amongst us mere mortals. For every Hitler there's a Mother Theresa, for every Ghandi a Saddam, and for every guy that lets you into traffic there's that prick that cuts you off.

Does anyone honestly believe that prior to Sept. 11th, 2001, no one ever tried to pull a terrorist attack in the US? There's not really a lot of relevant difference between 2001 and, say, 1981. Planes still circled the globe, flight schools still trained, and people still hated us. Christ, Reagan was in office, half the world wanted us dead and the other half were too freaked about his Alzheimer shaky ass finger on the button to piss him off. But at least he had Nancy to worry about his legacy.

Discounting the Oklahoma City attack which we perpetrated on ourselves, does anyone really believe that the Sept. 11th attacks were the first terrorist attacks on the US? Oh, right, forgetting the prior WTC attack, but that was too recent to count IMO.

Either we were a lot better at stopping shit before it happened or the governments been a lot better at lying about them that we thought of either one before now.

The only thing that changed on Sept. 11th, 2001, was America woke up and jined the rest of the world. You want to know what's going on in the world?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/

Here's the hot spots; an insurgency in Colombia, approaching genocide in Congo despite UN peace keepers, the Palestinian Intifada against Israel, civil war in the Ivory Coast, Chechnya, genocide in Darfur Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

That's eight major conflicts going on that all have the ability to cost tens of thousands of lives, and at least four of them already have.

Go back and check a similar list of 20 years ago.

Nothing has changed, only the players.

I read something earlier that prompted me to write this but I can't remember what now. Oh, right, some knob of a Republican spoke up on it over the fact that a couple years ago we apparently ran an undercover operation to test border security and were able to sneak in radioactive equipment past security. The material was detected, which is good, but the undercovers convinced security they were cool with fake documents, which is not cool. But come on, it's the fucking government forging the documents! I have to imagine they were *very* good forgeries.

So the Republican git said the border agencies were operating with a 'pre 9/11 mentality in a post 9/11 world.'

Ok, for one, let me state that I emphatically despise the use of a fucking acronym to describe one of our countries most horrific tragedies. It offends me, to be honest. It turns the tragedy into nothing more than a fucking sound bite in our ADS addled world and it pisses me off. Show some fucking respect and take the time to write the God Damn date out.

But having said that, at the end of the quote the Republican dude felt the need to add, of course, that 'everything has changed' or some shit to that effect, and it's just really, really getting old. I mean old as in old as dirt old. That old, past old, we're talking prehisfuckingtronic.

Nothing has changed, it's always been like this, we just finaly noticed.

The collective we, of course, because I knew this shit 25 years ago when I was still in high school. And we're doing fuck all about it. we're doing the same knee jerk bullshit we've always done. Bomb it and forget about it. Anyone that thinks we're going to be in Iraq ten years from now is confused. Oh we might have a base on the outskirts, something along the lines of Gitmo probably, some new no mans land that doesn't exist in regular reality. But we'll bail, and when we do, we'll blame the Iraqis. Remember where you heard it first.

On Sept. 11th, 2001, America pulled it's collective head out of it's collective ass. On March 20th, 2003, we put it back in.

After all, everything had changed, hadn't it?

The US attorney general is a liar

Just stands right up there and lies, blatant, in your face lying. Says we abhor torture and respect the rights of detainees. Of course we don't, since we *do* torture and we give detainees no rights. But that doesn't stop us from lying about it.

Also says we don't snatch people off the streets of other countries and send them to get tortured, even though we just paid some German dude $300,000 for doing exactly that to him. Doesn't matter what we, you know, actually do, as long as we just say that we don't.

Also said we never used European airports, or anyone elses airports for that matter, to move detainees to other countries to be tortured. Even though, you know, we did. But as long as we *say* we didn't, then it's the truth.

Also says that he's aware of "no other country in history" that has offorded 'enemy combatants' procedural protections like those we offer our 'detainees.' Of course, failing to mention that no other country in history has relied on the 'enemy combatant' designation to the extent that we are isn't really relavent, no need to pay attention to that fact at all, really. Just trust us when we say it.

The US attorney general, the nations top law official, charged with protecting the people and their rights. Not just working for the president, he's emplyed by the people themselves to ensure that the president follows the law. And he's a lying mother fucker. Blatant, in your face, bombs going off behind him ala' Baghdad Bob lying mother fuckre.

By every international standard of law, many of them treaties that we have signed, and by any definition of our own, we *have* tortured people. We have snatched them off the streets in the dead of night and flown them to other countries to be tortured. We've tortured by our own hands. These facts are not indisputable, they are, simply facts.

But that doesn't stop our attorney general from lying, repeatedly, over and over. But then, he's just doing his job.